318 SANDS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT 



potatoes). 2. Potatoes (fall sown rye). 3. Rye (seeded to clover). 

 4. Clover (second growth plowed under j. 5. Corn (soybeans 

 in corn). 



H — 1. Velvet beans (plowed under), followed by rye (plowed 

 under about May 1). 2. Cowpeas (cut for hay), followed by crim- 

 son clover (sown in fall and plowed imder about May 1). 3. Corn 

 and velvet beans. 



Types of Farming. — ^When the whole farm consists of poor 

 sand, the real problem is to find a way whereby the farmer with 

 limited means can begin at once to realize an income which he 

 can use to improve the soil and to develop a well-balanced and 

 profitable system of farming. It costs money to buy the needed 

 fertilizers and agricultural lime, and it is temporarily expensive 

 to grow certain crops and plow them under. The farmer must 

 begin a system of cropping which will, at the outset, give him 

 fairly certain and continuous returns. 



Soybeans, cowpeas and velvet beans (depending upon the 

 section of the country) offer the quickest and surest sources of 

 income. "When the sands are poor and organic matter and nitrogen 

 are essential to ensure any crop at all, a portion of the legume crop 

 should be plowed under. If a rotation such as A is planned at the 

 start, one-third of the crop is plowed under (legume), leaving two- 

 thirds of the season^s crops for sale. Perhaps after the first three 

 years, or when the three-year rotation is completed on each field, 

 a rotation such as D or E may be established, or a combination of 

 the two. In rotation D the soybeans may be grown for sale as 

 seed, and later on when animals are brought on the farm, or when 

 the number is increased, the soybeans may be grown for forage 

 except when opportunity is afforded to sow the crop after harvest- 

 ing rye, for green-manuring (rotation E). 



During the first few years legumes should constitute the major 

 crop, and at the same time su£6cient corn and rye should be pro- 

 duced to meet the feeding requirements of the horses, a few cows 

 and pigs, and a few head of young stock. 



Sands afford splendid opportunities for a combination of potato 

 and grain farming, provided particular attention be given the grow- 

 ing of legumes, and to the use of fertilizers and agricultural lime. 

 This tj^e of farming demands much less capital than livestock or 

 dairy farming, though the distribution of labor is not so good. 



In many sand sections which are favorably located, dairying 

 seems the best type of farming to be considered. Fences for cows 



